Paul Zak, who knows more about how oxytocin operates in humans than anyone else, has a video blog post on Psychology Today.
He has a lot of interesting things to say about how political parties stand in for tribal affiliations. I'm not sure I agree with him that evaluating your oxytocin response to politicians is the best way to choose who you'll vote for. See my comment after the video for more.
The naked mole rat, Heterocephalus glaber, not only looks weird, it has a very unusual lifestyle. Mole rats live in colonies organized like ant or bee colonies, with a queen, workers and a few breeding males.
Lisa Conti of Today in Mice, a very interesting blog published by Miller McCune, reports on research by Nancy Forger of the University of Mass.
Forger thinks oxytocin may be the bonding force in these underground societies.
The top question among most of us who are interested in oxytocin is, "How can I get more of it?" I always try to promote natural ways to get an oxytocin rush, instead of buying probably-useless products over the internet.
A new study, published last month and reported by Science Daily, points to still another way: writing about your values and core beliefs.
Jennifer Crocker and Yu Niiya from the University of Michigan and Dominik Mischkowski from the University of Konstanz in Germany, followed up on a different study that showed coffee drinkers were more open to hearing information about why it's bad for you if they had first written about their most important value. Crocker and Niiya wanted to understand what caused this effect.
They did two experiments. First, they had people write for ten minutes; half the subjects wrote about their most important value, the other half about their least important value. Then, they rated how much love or empathy they felt afterwards.
In the second experiment, smokers and non-smokers did the same writing exercise, and then they read an article about the harm of smoking to your health. The people who had written about an important value felt more loving and they were also less defensive about the negative info on smoking.
They didn't test the subjects' blood, but the researchers think that oxytocin is what made the difference. According to the article,
James Pennebaker has shown that writing about things that bother you can boost your immune system's functioning. A release of oxytocin also could explain that effect.
So, before you spend $49.95, sit down and think about what matters to you -- and write it down.
Still another fascinating human oxytocin study was published last week. Adam Guastella, from the Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, gave 69 men a whiff of oxytocin and then showed them photos of faces. Some of the faces were happy, some neutral, some angry.
The next day, they showed the men some of the same photos mixed with new ones -- sans oxytocin. They asked them which ones they remembered; the men who had inhaled oxytocin were more likely to remember the smiling faces.
Adam Guastella also is doing a trial using oxytocin during couples psychotherapy, to see if it makes the couples more open and connected, thereby increasing the progress they make. Beate Ditzen did an experiment a couple of years ago in which couples snorted oxytocin and then engaged in an argument. Those who got oxytocin were better able to resolve the dispute with less anger.
At LiveScience.com, Meredith Small reports on the study in a post with the provocative title, How Birth Control Lets Us Down. Her premise is that because lactating seems to be the state in which we release the most oxytocin, when women don't have children or have fewer of them, we're missing out on the positive emotional benefits:
...the oxytocin universe has altered for many women. In Western culture today, women barely lactate at all, leaving them just as physiologically ready to hold a grudge, to never forget the face that did them wrong, as any man.
Too bad. Perhaps what we need is more lactation, by men and women, or a daily shot of oxytocin to help us all put on a happy face.
Of course, oxytocin is released in response to all sorts of social interactions. And, while estrogen seems to enhance its effects, making women more open to bonding or to forgetting those angry faces, men certainly fall under its influence as well.
Small makes another interesting and very important point, though: In situations or cultures where women do tend to be the ones to center the family and maintain social connections, this skill is not always valued:
Problem is, those good social skills, that penchant to forget the faces of those who are angry or neutral, has not always helped women. Instead, men, who are never awash in oxytocin and who apparently never forget an angry face, usually see women as emotional Pollyannas, silly creatures always ready to forgive and forget.
Of course, she is engaging is some stereotyping. Women certainly hold grudges, sometimes better than men, perhaps because a breach of the social bond is more devastating. And men are certainly awash in oxytocin, although their neurochemistries can make its effects less obvious.
See "Oxytocin enhances the encoding of positive social memories in humans."
Oxytocin is the new party drug in India, according to this story from the Times of India.
I've seen previous news stories about police seizing illegal oxytocin or counterfeit versions, and wondered if this was a mistranslation and they meant oxycontin, the pain reliever. And evidently farmers often inject cows with oxytocin to increase milk production, an effect noted by Kristen Uvnas Moberg, the Swedish researcher who was the first to understand this hormone/neurochemical's powerful effects on our moods and ability to bond.
The Times explains that kids inject the oxytocin.
According to a pharmacy expert, the drug induces a numb state of mind. "After a period of intense activity and enjoyment where the addicts are numb to pain, effect of the drug wears off and the users drop, literally. It leaves the addicts’ nervous system in a mess and the users need time to recover," he said.
I dunno about this numb state of mind. They may, rather, feel very calm and connected to each other, similar to the way people who take ecstasy at raves say they feel. (It's been shown that this drug causes a release of oxytocin in the brain of mice.) Oxytocin certainly does reduce sensitivity to pain, and the "mess" side effects have been seen in people who take ecstasy frequently.
The authorities may be overstating the negative effects, as they sometimes do. Nevertheless, I do NOT advocate using oxytocin recreationally. First, because it acts in so many ways to regulate the body, messing with the natural system could have unforeseen and not pretty consequences. Second, it's dangerous to inject anything into your body if you don't have sterile equipment and know what you're doing -- especially if you can't be sure of what you're injecting.
A new blog from Alia Macrina Heise identifies a syndrome she calls depressive milk ejection reflex, or D-MER. She defines it thus:
"Depressive Milk Ejection Reflex is a condition that causes a prodromal effect of negative emotions that emerge only before the milk ejection reflex, or letdown, in a lactating mother."
According to her blog, she's the mother of three -- and a lactation counselor. Although breastfeeding is supposed to be a peak experience -- deeply rewarding, sensual and soothing, thanks to oxytocin -- she experienced something quite different.
Go to her blog, D-MER.org, to read more about her experiences and those of other women.
One theory Alicia has for the cause of this syndrome, which involves discomfort and depression during breastfeeding, is a paradoxical reaction to oxytocin. A paradoxical reaction is when someone has not the expected reaction to a drug, but a different one, often the opposite.
I would guess that, rather than a paradoxical reaction to oxytocin, D-MER might be caused by an excess of prolactin. Prolactin is involved in milk letdown, but it's also involved in sexual satiety. It's the hormone, released at orgasm, that tells our bodies we've had enough sex, so give it a rest.
People sometimes talk about a feeling of letdown following sex, a sense of depression and even of distaste for one's partner. I think this, too, is the result of a bit too much of prolactin's satiating ability. It makes sense to me that an excess of prolactin, or too intense a response to its effects, could be the cause of D-MER.
Here are studies indicating prolactin's effect on sexual satiety:
Krueger, Tilmann H.C.; Haake, Philip; Hartmann, Uwe; Schedlowski, Manfred; and Exton, Michael S., Orgasm-induced prolactin secretion: feedback control of sexual drive? (Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 26 2002) 31-44)
Krueger, Tilmann H.C.; Haake, Philip; Haverkamp, J.; Krämer, M .; Exton, Michael S.; Saller, B; Leygraf, N.; Hartmann, Uwe; and Schedlowski, Manfred, Effects of acute prolactin manipulation on sexual drive and function in males (Journal of Endocrinology (2003) 179, 357–365)
If you're interested in my scientifically informed hypotheses about how gay bonding is different and the same from the straight version, please check out my article on Scientific Blogging: Lesbian Bed Death Explained.
Much research has been done on the role of oxytocin in behaviors related to bonding and parenting in prairie voles, a socially monogamous species. Karen Bales at UC Davis is looking at oxytocin and vasopressin in titi monkeys, a socially monogamous primate. Working up the evolutionary chain makes it more likely that changes in behavior caused by manipulating oxytocin could give us insights into human behavior.
Adam Smith, a graduate student at the University of Nebraska, just got a National Science Foundation to continue his work on oxytocin and male marmosets -- still another socially monogamous primate.
And, gotta love whoever wrote the headline:
Smith is looking to determine whether elevating or suppressing the oxytocin in marmoset monkeys will affect the social behavior that influences the monogamous relationships of adult male and female monkeys.
I'm excited that the wonderful film by Debra Pascali-Bonaro is finished. I can't wait to see it. Meanwhile, I'm publishing Debra's entire press release. I think this film could do much to change our understanding of what birth could be. Go to the site immediately to see astonishing video. This is world-changing!
The Best-Kept Secret--Unveiled
You too can be a part of this exciting project! Go to
www.orgasmicbirth.com and:
The DVD is available with subtitles in French, German,
Spanish, and Portuguese and has a remarkable score by John McDowell, composer
of the Oscar-winning documentary “Born Into Brothels.”
Questions? Please use the “Contact us” e-mail tab on the
home page of www.orgasmicbirth.com.
What do you get when you combine HGTV with pregnancy? Oxytocin-fueled extreme home makeovers, according to this article from the New York Times: Nesting with a Vengeance (and a Deadline).
This is a lifestyles trend piece, not a science story, but the writer dragged in a couple of doctors as well as interior designers to describe the lengths to which some women go to get the house ready for baby:
Typically, projects resulting from the nesting instinct have been small-scale affairs — a cleaning jag, a den converted to a nursery with a little paint and drywall, a changing station built into a laundry room. But lately, even as the housing and renovation markets have slumped, some pregnant nesters have been getting more ambitious, spurred on by the widespread home-improvement mania of the last decade and by the plethora of design-themed magazines and television shows.
I'm sure women who have to work as long as they can before their due dates -- as well as ones who don't have an extra hundred grand sitting in the bank -- still make do with a coat of paint.
